Women’s Rights Online

Women’s Rights Online

As the digital revolution steams ahead, women and girls are being left behind — poor urban women in the developing world are 50% less likely than men to access the internet. Determined to tackle this challenge head on, our Women’s Rights Online network drives women's empowerment on and through the web by working to reform policy and regulation to close the digital gender gap.

Women’s Rights Online

As the digital revolution steams ahead, women and girls are being left behind — poor urban women in the developing world are 50% less likely than men to access the internet. Determined to tackle this challenge head on, our Women’s Rights Online network drives women's empowerment on and through the web by working to reform policy and regulation to close the digital gender gap.

Team Members Involved

Nanjira Sambuli

Nanjira leads the Web Foundation’s policy advocacy efforts to promote digital equality in access to and use of the web. A Nairobi-based researcher and analyst, Nanjira brings broad expertise asRead more

Artificial intelligence is shaping gender relations across the world, including in developing countries, creating new challenges and opportunities for women. For their personal development andRead more

More About This Project

Internet access offers a powerful avenue for people around the world to assert their rights and to claim social, economic and political opportunities for empowerment. Yet, half the world’s population remains offline — most of them women, and most in developing countries. Recent research shows that this persistent, pernicious digital gender gap is worsening — a fact that threatens to deepen existing inequalities and to undermine global development as the benefits of technological change are captured primarily by men. Our Women’s Rights Online network is working to reverse this trend by focusing its efforts on impacting the policy needed to bridge the gender gap in technology, data, and policymaking. Comprising women’s rights and digital rights groups across 17 low- and middle-income countries, the network wants to see evidence-based national ICT and gender plans established in at least seven new countries within the next five years.